How the damning findings of the Meron disaster inquiry are good for Netanyahu
In normal circumstances, a prime minister blamed for the deaths of 45 people would have packed up and gone — but not this one
Yuval Yoaz is the legal analyst at Zman Israel, The Times of Israel's sister Hebrew website. He practices law, specializing in public, constitutional and media laws. He is a partner in the law office of Karniel & Co Yoaz-Bareket-Jonas.
The grave accusations that Netanyahu failed to uphold the security of the Gaza border communities and has mismanaged the war against Hamas actually play to his advantage when it comes to the state commission of inquiry’s finding that he was responsible for the 2021 Meron disaster.
The committee’s final report, published Wednesday, found Netanyahu bears personal responsibility for the Meron disaster but refrained from recommending sanctions against the prime minister due to his status as an elected official.
We’ll come back to that.
Of the 18 officials the commission warned would be impacted by its findings, nearly all were found to bear personal responsibility.
The report advised that Amir Ohana, who currently serves as Knesset speaker and served as public security minister during the Meron disaster, not be appointed to his former position in the future.
The commission also recommended that Israel Police chief Kobi Shabtai’s tenure end; however, in light of complications arising from the war, it tasked the government with deciding Shabtai’s end date.
We can assume Netanyahu will not be quitting.
After not resigning when indicted for bribery, shirking responsibility for the 2010 Mount Carmel forest fire, and again not resigning following the October 7 massacre — and refusing even to take responsibility for it — he’s not going to start doing the right thing now.
To be clear: In a normal situation, a prime minister found personally responsible for the deaths of 45 people in what was the worst civil disaster in the country’s history should be packing up his office and heading home in shame. But the most likely scenario is business as usual.
And that, in turn, bolsters the assumption that if Netanyahu is still in power when a state commission investigating the October 7 massacre publishes its recommendations, he will ignore those too. This could even boost support from his political base, painting him as a figure who stands firm against the ostensible fabrication of cases by the judicial system of which the Meron commission, according to this twisted logic, is a part.
It seems that the members of the Meron commission were well aware of all of this. The parts of their report that deal with Netanyahu reflect the understanding that the prime minister would ignore everything except the bottom line: There is no recommendation for Netanyahu to step down.
It’s not by chance that the report reads like a precursor to the discussion of Netanyahu’s personal responsibility for the calamities of October 7 and the ongoing war with Hamas. The commission might as well have titled it, “You’re the leader. You’re responsible,” because that’s exactly what the report is saying when it excruciatingly details, over many pages, the precise meaning of personal responsibility.
Here is an excerpt from one of those many pages — a passage that appeared in previous reports and which will most likely appear in the future commission report investigating the war in Gaza:
“Responsibility is a fundamental value in the proper character of one who holds public office. We have been shown a bleak picture of responsibility. Every person who holds public office has a responsibility to their constituency — the entire public. The responsibility of a public servant stems from their very consent to hold the position. By accepting the power that comes with public office, they also took upon themselves the responsibility for their actions.”
And: “Our conclusion is that there is a reasonable basis to declare that Netanyahu knew that the site of Rashbi’s tomb [on Mount Meron] had been poorly taken care of for years and that this would create a risk for the many visitors to the site. Even if we posit that Netanyahu had no real knowledge of the matter, he should have known about it under the circumstances. In some cases, Netanyahu was directly involved in this matter.”
Therefore, the commission states, “Netanyahu’s claim that he wasn’t grabbed by his coat lapels [by those who should have energetically warned him of the potential for disaster] should not be accepted.”
Netanyahu knew and did not act. Because of this, the report states, “We came to the general conclusion that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu bears personal responsibility in accordance with the findings in question.”
And yet, regarding consequences, the commission took a step back:
“We decided not to make an operational recommendation in Netanyahu’s case. The position of prime minister is an elected position with unique characteristics, and therefore, we do not make any recommendation in this case.”
This can be read to mean that the commission is clearing the prime minister from any operative responsibility for the disaster: Netanyahu is responsible but, at the end of the day, it’s up to the public to judge.
But it can also be seen as indicating the commission unequivocally believes that Netanyahu must resign or that the political system must remove him — but it expects the players in the political and public arena to understand this without it being spelled out.
Four decades ago, the Kahan Commission — the state commission of inquiry investigating the 1982 massacre at the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps in Beirut — placed personal responsibility on prime minister Menachem Begin.
“We find no reason to exempt the prime minister from responsibility for not having evinced, during or after the cabinet session, any interest in the Phalangists’ actions in the camps,” that commission wrote. “The prime minister’s lack of involvement in the entire matter casts on him a certain degree of responsibility.”
However, the Kahan Commission refrained from making recommendations in Begin’s case, given the significant degree of responsibility ultimately placed on him. “We are of the opinion that it is sufficient to determine responsibility, and there is no need for any further recommendations,” the commission wrote.
Nevertheless, when Begin received the report, he said, “I think I should resign.” Then-justice minister Moshe Nissim and cabinet secretary Dan Meridor ultimately convinced him to put aside that idea.
We can assume that’s not what Netanyahu said when he received the report from the state commission of inquiry into the Meron disaster.
